The members of Assam Tea Tribes Students’ Association (ATTSA) on Tuesday staged protest in front of Dibrugarh PWD office against irregularities in construction of tea garden roads in Dibrugarh.
The students’ body alleged that huge irregularities have taken place in construction of the 4.927 km road from Mancotta Jokai Samaguri to Timon village.
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“In the name of construction of the road, the contractor has dug the whole road of 1 ft to 1.5 ft,” said Lakhindra Kurmi, district publicity secretary of ATTSA.
“Under Lahowal and Dibrugarh constituencies, the tea garden roads were constructed under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY) and State-owned Priority Development (SOPD) schemes. For 4.927 km road, Rs 5 crore to Rs 15 crore was alloted. But it seems that the contractors are not doing the work up to the mark,” Kurmi alleged.
Despite repeated complaints in this regard, the department officials are not showing g seriousness towards resolving these issues, the student leader alleged.
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“Today, we organised the protest against the irregularities at PWD office,” said Kurmi.
“We demand an inquiry into the matter. Earlier, we submitted memorandum to deputy commissioner Pallav Gopal Jha regarding the matter, but no step has been taken so far,” he added.
“Five years’ timeframe was given to complete the work of roads but the construction work of tea garden roads has been going in a slow pace,” claimed district ATTSA president Sunil Pator.
“The BJP government sanctioned Rs 1 crore under the PMGSY for tea garden roads but the contractor has adopted unfair means in the construction of the roads,” Pator alleged.
However, after the protest, the PWD chief engineer inspected the Mancotta No 1 road and Bogpara Road and found lots of anomalies in the construction of the roads.
“The chief engineer found lots of anomaly in the road construction and assured us that he would take steps against the contractor,” said Kurmi.